news & politics:discussion

[fred quimby]

4 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

If we’d gone into lockdown earlier then it wouldn’t have needed to be as long and severe. 

It is certainly something we need to know, but probably appears that way. Just sounds like a shitshow in Goverment on decision making. 

 

On an aside. Heard some Tory c**t making comparisons to the forecast and modeling on covid and the modeling for climate change. His conclusion was they were just the same, and they got covid figures wrong so climate figures should be ignored and we don't have to do anything

[lost]

16 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Was listening to something on this the other month. They were mentioning Sweden and compared it to Norway  who are more comparable to us. Norway did the lockdown and came out with far less deaths. They did not mention the economy though.

All the Scandinavian countries did better than us though Sweden were the best. The UK did pretty much bang on average. Factors that appeared to well outweigh if a country locked down or not were things like general health of the population (obesity levels) etc..

Edited October 31, 2023 by lost

[steviewevie]

9 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

If we’d gone into lockdown earlier then it wouldn’t have needed to be as long and severe. 

Cummings made the point if we had addressed test and trace and other stuff that I can't remember earlier then maybe we could have avoided lockdown. Maybe. 

Problem is with all these things is you can only prepare and invest in so many events, whether it's a flu pandemic, a coronavirus pandemic, some bacterial zombie thing, nuclear accident or bomb, chemical weapon, biological weapon, solar flares, climate breakdown, meteor, or aliens. I expect we're pretty well set up for the next coronavirus pandemic, especially with test and trace and vaccines...but it may well be something else that we hadn't thought of....the birds start attacking us or something...

[cellar]

17 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Was listening to something on this the other month. They were mentioning Sweden and compared it to Norway  who are more comparable to us. Norway did the lockdown and came out with far less deaths. They did not mention the economy though.

But yes we should be learning in how we react to these situations. I do wonder if we will mind

It's a really interesting thing to be thinking about. I think our gov handled it terribly, but the element of how interconnected our society is these days is a big factor. Isn't London one of the top 5 hubs for international travel? So an effective response would require global commitment in some way that I'm not smart enough to be able to think of.

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, lost said:

All the Scandinavian countries did better than us though Sweden were the best. The UK did pretty much bang on average. Factors that appeared to well outweigh if a country locked down or not were things like general health of the population (obesity levels) etc..

I think disingenuous to compare us to any of them...if you're going to compare us to a european country it has to be France or Germany.

[cellar]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Cummings made the point if we had addressed test and trace and other stuff that I can't remember earlier then maybe we could have avoided lockdown. Maybe. 

Problem is with all these things is you can only prepare and invest in so many events, whether it's a flu pandemic, a coronavirus pandemic, some bacterial zombie thing, nuclear accident or bomb, chemical weapon, biological weapon, solar flares, climate breakdown, meteor, or aliens. I expect we're pretty well set up for the next coronavirus pandemic, especially with test and trace and vaccines...but it may well be something else that we hadn't thought of....the birds start attacking us or something...

[lost]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I think disingenuous to compare us to any of them...if you're going to compare us to a european country it has to be France or Germany.

Germany did well. They had the sense to stick oldies in hotels between hospital and nursing homes. We did about the same as France and better than Spain and Italy.

I actually think the whole debate is a mute point. We had a once in a generation level of spending and if say there was another pandemic next year and we tried again it would be simply "bond market says no"

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I'm glad I missed Covid. I had cataracts for 2 years due to lockdowns and was housebound.

It all sounds a dreadful state of affairs.

[steviewevie]

another thing that came out of that Cummings questioning (and Lee Cain earlier) which isn't really news I guess, was that Johnson was obviously ill equipped as he was so indecisive and all over the shop (like a trolley)...but also there was some sympathy as  it was unprecedented and he was getting different advice and data from everywhere and everyone and it was all moving so fast, it was a massively f**king hard decision to do that lockdown thing.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, lost said:

Germany did well. They had the sense to stick oldies in hotels between hospital and nursing homes. We did about the same as France and better than Spain and Italy.

I actually think the whole debate is a mute point. We had a once in a generation level of spending and if say there was another pandemic next year and we tried again it would be simply "bond market says no"

yes, but a risk of thousands/millions of deaths and overwhelmed health services might not be so good for economies and markets either.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

It is certainly something we need to know, but probably appears that way. Just sounds like a shitshow in Goverment on decision making. 

 

On an aside. Heard some Tory c**t making comparisons to the forecast and modeling on covid and the modeling for climate change. His conclusion was they were just the same, and they got covid figures wrong so climate figures should be ignored and we don't have to do anything

I think it’s pretty much certain that if go early with the virus then your precautions don’t need to be as long. We saw that 3 different times because Johnson dithered we had to have long lockdowns. 

[fred quimby]

6 minutes ago, lost said:

All the Scandinavian countries did better than us though Sweden were the best. 

Are you sure ?. Data doesn't seem to back that up. Not that it matters. Also depends what you measure I guess but in most measures Norway were lower.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, Rufus Gwertigan said:

I'm glad I missed Covid. I had cataracts for 2 years due to lockdowns and was housebound.

It all sounds a dreadful state of affairs.

it was awesome. I loved lockdown. No office, no other people, nice and quiet apart from all the f**king clapping and saucepan banging on a thursday evening. I used to like the apocalyptic trip to the supermarket.

[cellar]

4 minutes ago, lost said:

Germany did well. They had the sense to stick oldies in hotels between hospital and nursing homes. We did about the same as France and better than Spain and Italy.

I actually think the whole debate is a mute point. We had a once in a generation level of spending and if say there was another pandemic next year and we tried again it would be simply "bond market says no"

Hopefully we get a bit of a financial market reset before the next pandemic. The global financial system really needs to take a look at itself. But again, it's all so interlinked, and no one wants to be the first to budge. 

[fred quimby]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yes, but a risk of thousands/millions of deaths and overwhelmed health services might not be so good for economies and markets either.

Very true. Should help us plan mind and maybe build up funds for such things. I know! I can dream competent people are in charge

[lost]

2 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Are you sure ?. Data doesn't seem to back that up. Not that it matters. Also depends what you measure I guess but in most measures Norway were lower.

I'm using excess mortality between 2020 and 2022. Deaths within 28 days of a positive test is pointless.

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Very true. Should help us plan mind and maybe build up funds for such things. I know! I can dream competent people are in charge

I think that is the point, plan and be prepared for next one. Trouble is next pandemic might not be for another hundred years, so obviously priorities change, especially as we're all likely to get nuked or fry/drown due to the climate breaking over the next few decades.

[steviewevie]

Obviously King Charles is a massive c**t etc...but at least he is trying to apologise and repair some of the wrong doing colonial britain has done in the past in places like Kenya. 

 

[fred quimby]

13 minutes ago, lost said:

I'm using excess mortality between 2020 and 2022. Deaths within 28 days of a positive test is pointless.

Yea interesting. Used the same but see a different outcome, using data from 2015 to 2019 and comparing to 2020 to 2022. Mind you reading it again Sweden had worse deaths in 2019 (no idea why) so from a slightly different base. Norway went very strict early.

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, fred quimby said:

Yea interesting. Used the same but see a different outcome, using data from 2015 to 2019 and comparing to 2020 to 2022. Mind you reading it again Sweden had worse deaths in 2019 (no idea why) so from a slightly different base. Norway went very strict early.

people see what they want to see.

[lost]

25 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yes, but a risk of thousands/millions of deaths and overwhelmed health services might not be so good for economies and markets either.

If such a virus appeared I think people would lockdown voluntarily so again it wouldn't be a debate.

The issue here was as Boris said if you were under 60 you were as much as risk as probably a dozen other things you do daily. Basically the plebs were not trusted to pass it onto the vulnerable whist the politicians and Sage scientists like Prof Ferguson could party and go around shagging other peoples wives because they believe they are more intelligent than the rest of us.

Edited October 31, 2023 by lost

[steviewevie]

8 minutes ago, lost said:

If such a virus appeared I think people would lockdown voluntarily so again it wouldn't be a debate.

 

Would they? Some people needed to go to work. The lockdown was to stop the spread of virus, to basically keep health services functioning. This meant people stopping home from work, and for those that couldn't work or for businesses that had to close down there was financial support...otherwise you're looking at mass unemployment.

[cellar]

12 minutes ago, lost said:

If such a virus appeared I think people would lockdown voluntarily so again it wouldn't be a debate.

Think this is a bit of a stretch. I actually think it would be harder to get people to comply if a similar virus came about in the next 10 years or so.

[lost]

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Would they? Some people needed to go to work. The lockdown was to stop the spread of virus, to basically keep health services functioning. This meant people stopping home from work, and for those that couldn't work or for businesses that had to close down there was financial support...otherwise you're looking at mass unemployment.

I still don't think people would go out if they thought they were going to die. The issue was most people knew they were going to be ok. The lockdown was to slow the spread not stop. People still went out and congregated in supermarkets and the like whilst others went to work. I don't think anyone thought it would stop the spread surely?

Edited October 31, 2023 by lost

[lost]

8 minutes ago, cellar said:

Think this is a bit of a stretch. I actually think it would be harder to get people to comply if a similar virus came about in the next 10 years or so.

We had a building fire near me recently and someone came around and said there may of been asbestos in the roof and everyone should stay in with windows and doors shut until the all clear was given. I didn't see a single person in the street. I genuinely don't believe people are that f**king stupid.